Islam, Middle East and Fascism

In a speech that he gave at Columbia University, Umberto Eco
spelled out fourteen features that he considered were typical of
Eternal Fascism (which he also calls Ur-Fascism ); adding however
this explanatory detail: " These features cannot be organized into a
system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of
other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of
them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it."

Umberto Eco: [1] The Cult of Tradition. "Truth has already been
spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its
obscure message."

Islam is the quintessentially tradition-bound religion. First, the
Koran is the eternal and infallible Word of God, and contains the
whole of God’s final revelation to man, and must be obeyed in all
its details. "This day I have perfected your religion for you and
completed My favour to you. I have chosen Islam to be your faith."
The Koran is immutable, "Say: ‘It is not for me to change [the
Koran]. I only follow what is revealed to me. I cannot disobey my
Lord, for I fear the punishment of a fateful day." "Proclaim what is
revealed to you in the Book of your Lord. None can change His Words.
You shall find no refuge besides Him." The Koran is a faithful and
unalterable reproduction of the original scriptures which are
preserved in heaven.

A Muslim’s wish is to establish a new life in accordance with a
religious law willed by God and consonant with the Prophet
Muhammad’s intentions. Clearly the Koran by itself (i.e.
uninterpreted) did not furnish enough guiding principles to meet the
changing requirements of the early Muslims. Thus, in all matters
whether civil or religious, the will of the prophet had first to be
ascertained and followed as a true guide to practical conduct. The
Prophet’s Companions were considered the best source for learning
the Prophet’s will ; that is, from people who lived their lives in
his company, witnessed his actions, and heard his very words and
pronouncements on every single aspect of daily life. After the
passing of this first generation, pious Muslims had to rely on the
members of the next generation who passed on what they had learnt
from the first. Thus, transmission from generation to generation
continued down to contemporary periods. Finally, conduct and
judgment were accepted as correct and their legitimacy was
established if a chain of reliable transmission ( isnad, in Arabic
)ultimately traced them back to a Companion who could testify that
they were in harmony with the Prophet’s intentions. On the strength
of such traditions, certain customs in ritual and law were
established as the usage of the authoritative first believers of
Islam, and as having been practised under the Prophet’s own eyes. As
such, they acquired a sacred character. They are called sunna,
sacred custom. The form in which such a usage is stated is hadith,
tradition. Sunna and hadith are not synonymous ; hadith being the
documentation of sunna.

Sunna intimately reflects the views and practices of the oldest
Islamic community, and thus functions as the most authoritative
interpretation of the Koran. The Koran cannot answer every single
problem that any morally sensitive Muslim is likely to encounter ;
and it only comes alive and effective through the sunna. Furthermore
the Koran, contrary to what many Muslims realize, is an extremely
obscure text ; even Muslims exegetes acknowledge that they do not
know the meaning of many words and whole passages. For instance, the
exegetes have classified obscure or opaque sentences of the Koran
into Zahir ( obvious ) or hidden ( Khafi ). The Khafi sentences are
further subdivided into Khaji, Mushkil, Mujmal, and Mutashabih. In
Khaji sentences the other persons or things are hidden beneath the
plain meaning of a word or expression ; Mushkil sentences are
ambiguous; Mujmal sentences have a variety of interpretations ,
while Mutashabih ones are intricate sentences or expressions, the
exact meaning of which it is impossible for a man to ascertain until
the day of resurrection. The Koran itself tells us that it contains
ambiguous verses, and verses whose interpretation is only known to
God ( sura iii.5 p .214 vol.1).

The Sharia or Islamic Law is based on four principles: The Koran;
the sunna of the Prophet, which is incorporated in the recognized
traditions ( hadith ); the consensus (ijma) of the scholars of the
orthodox community ; and the method of reasoning by analogy (qiyas)

Many liberal Muslims ( if that is not a contradiction in terms) get
excited by ijma, sensing that somehow therein lies their only hope
of modernising Islam. However, historically, the notion of consensus
(ijma) has nothing democratic about it ; the masses are expressly
excluded. It is the consensus of suitably qualified and learned
authorities. The doctrine of the infallibility of the consensus, far
from allowing some liberty of reasoning as one might have expected,
worked in favour of a progressive narrowing and hardening of
doctrine. By the beginning of 900 C.E., Islamic Law became rigidly
fixed because Muslim scholars felt that all essential questions had
been thoroughly discussed and finally settled, and a consensus
gradually established itself to the effect that henceforth no one
might be deemed to have the necessary qualifications for independent
reasoning in law, and that all future activity would have to be
confined to the explanation, application, and, at most,
interpretation of the doctrine as it had been laid down once and for
all. This closing of the gate of independent reasoning, in effect,
meant the unquestioning acceptance of the doctrines of established
schools and authorities. Islamic Law became increasingly rigid and
set in its final mould.

Liberal Muslims think they are more liberated than their
"fundamentalist" cousins because they (the Liberal Muslims) believe
that by some creative re-interpretation of the Koran they will
thereby bring the Koran, albeit screaming and kicking, into the 21st
Century. First, it does not seem to strike these misguided liberal
Muslims that they are still prisoners to an obscure, incoherent,
bizarre mediaeval text, a curious amalgam of Talmudic Judaism,
apocryphal Christianity and pagan superstitions (especially in the
rites and rituals of the Hajj), full of barbarisms. They have not
cut their umbilical cords, and are still trying to make sense of an
often senseless text, more than a thousand years old. Second this
desire to re-interpret has led to some willful and intellectually
dishonest "re-reading" of the Koran. Feminists pretend that the
"real Koran" is progressive towards women, human rights activists
pretend, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary that
the « real Koran » is totally compatible with the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. The reality is that the Koran, and the
Sharia derived from the Koran, are totalitarian constructs that try
to control every single aspect of an individual’s life from the way
he or she urinates and defecates, the way he/she eats, dresses,
works, marries, makes love, prays, to the way he or she thinks on
every conceivable subject. Finally, while the Koran is open to some
re-interpretation, it is not infinitely flexible.

Umberto Eco: [2] "Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism
…The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of
modern depravity. In this sense [Eternal fascism] can be defined as
irrationalism."

Umberto Eco: [3] "Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action
for action’s sake …. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore
culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical
attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been
symptom of Ur- [or Eternal Fascism ]."

Umberto Eco: [4] " No syncretistic faith can withstand analytical
criticism. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to
distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific
community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For
Ur-Fascism (or Eternal Fascism), disagreement is is treason."

Umberto Eco: [5] "Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.
Ur-fascism (or Eternal Fascism) grows up and seeks for consensus by
exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The
first appeal of a fascist movement is an appeal against intruders.
Thus Ur-Fascism (or Eternal Fascism) is racist by definition."

I shall show that, mutatis mutandis, Islam also rejects modernism,
is hostile to reason, critical thought, fears disagreement, and is
terrified of ‘intruders,’ though Islam’s form of exclusion is based
on religion and not race.

The revival of modern Muslim thought owes a great deal to the
writings of the Indian (later Pakistani) al-Maududi. In works such
as Jihad in Islam, Islam and Jahiliyya, The Principles of Islamic
Government, al-Maududi was the first modern Muslim thinker to
"arrive at a sweeping condemnation of modernity and its
incompatibility with Islam, and to formulate a definition of the
danger it constituted." Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian thinker, was in
part influenced by al-Maududi, and felt that "Domination should be
reverted to Allah alone, namely to Islam, that holistic system He
conferred upon men. An all-out offensive, a jihad, should be waged
against modernity so that this moral rearmament could take place The
ultimate objective is to reestablish the Kingdom of God upon earth
…"

Second, let us not forget that all three of the major Abrahamic
religions are irrational, that is, they are based on irrational
dogma that do not stand up to critical scrutiny. The whole framework
of the three religions is historical, in that all three depend on
the historical veracity of putative events described in their
respective scriptures. But increasing critical inquiry and
scientific thought( historical, philological , archaeological ) has
revealed the improbability of the historical events described in
their scriptures, and traditions. While Higher Biblical Criticism,
developed by great thinkers such Spinoza, and further elaborated in
Germany in the 19th Century, is well-known to, at least, educated
Westerners and intellectuals in general , astonishingly few people
even among the Western Islamologists seem to be aware of the shaky
historical foundations of the beliefs of Muslims.

Muslims seem to be unaware that the research of the German Higher
Critics apply directly to their belief system, which seems
impervious to rational thought. For instance, there is absolutely no
evidence, archaeological, epigraphic, documentary, that Abraham ever
set foot in Arabia, let alone build the Kaaba. Many scholars such T.
L. Thompson have even put forward the idea that not only Abraham but
Isaac and Jacob never existed. Muslims are also committed to the
dogma that Moses wrote the Pentateuch despite research since the 17
the Century of thinkers such as La Preyre, Spinoza, and Hobbes, and
in the 19th Century by historians such as Julius Wellhausen who have
all argued that Moses could not possibly have written the First Five
Books of the Old Testament. No Western scholar believes the
apocryphal Christian story of Jesus that is to be found in the
Koran. Further it is surely totally irrational to continue to
believe that the Koran is the word of God when the slightest amount
of rational thought will reveal that the Koran contains words and
passages addressed to God ( e.g. the Fatihah; sura vi.104; vi..114 ;
xvii.1; xxvii.91; lxxxi.15-29; lxxxiv.16-19; etc.) ; that it is full
of historical errors: at sura xl.38, the Koran mistakenly identifies
Haman, who in reality was the minister of the Persian King Ahasuerus
( mentioned in the book of Esther ), as the minister of the Pharaoh
at the time of Moses ; there is a confusion of Mary, the mother of
Jesus, with the Mary who was sister of Moses and Aaron ; at sura
ii.249/250, there is obviously a confusion between the story of Saul
as told therein, and the account of Gideon in Judges, 7.5; the
account of Alexander the Great is hopelessly garbled historically (sura
xviii.82).

Finally, Goldziher, Lammens and Schacht, have shown that a vast
number of traditions (hadith) accepted even in the most rigorously
critical Muslim collections were outright forgeries from the late
8th and 9th centuries. It is simply irrational to go on accepting
the "truth" of these traditions.

The history of the Islamic theology can be seen as a struggle
between reason and revelation, with the eventual triumph of the
dictates of revelation, with a victory for irrationalism and blind
obedience to tradition.

It is undoubtedly true that there was at the dawn of Islam, a
rationalising tendency as, for example, in the theology of the
Mu‘tazilites. But the Mu‘tazilites were nonetheless Muslims, which
in itself, as I have tried to argue above, is an indication of
irrational beliefs. Second, they were ready to assassinate those who
rejected their doctrines and advocated the jihad in all regions in
which their dogma did not have the ascendancy. They were responsible
for the Mihna or the Muslim Inquisition.

Finally, the rationalism of the Mu ‘tazilites was defeated by the
philosophy of al-Ashari (died 935 C.E.) who, while not totally
abandoning reason, did essentially subordinate reason to revelation.
And the final death blow was given to rationalism by the real
traditionists whose views eventually prevailed in Islam. The
traditionists had no time for scholastic theology, which, for them
was no different from Aristotelian philosophy –both led to unbelief.
The traditionists refused to bend to aql, or reason, for them,
reason was not required for religious understanding. Religious truth
lay in in the Koran and the sunna, both of which had to be accepted
without question and doubts. For example, al Shafi ‘i is made to say
in true traditionist fashion that people who advocate scholastic
theology with its modest amount of rationalism, "should be beaten
with whips and the soles of sandals, and then paraded through all
tribes and encampments while it is proclaimed of them, ‘Such is the
reward of those who forsake the Koran and sunna and give themselves
up to scholastic theology ( kalam ). ’" Al-Ghazali was similarly
dismissive of reason; he constantly criticizes the Greeks and the
Muslim philosophers influenced by them. Al Ghazali finds Greeks the
source of all kinds infidelity ; he was totally opposed to spirit of
free inquiry; for example in section 7, chapter 2 of his Ihay ulum
al-adin, al Gahazali tells us that certain of the natural sciences
are contrary to the law and religion, and in chapter 3 he tells us
to abstain from free thought and accept the conclusions of the
prophets. The great Ibn Khaldun is also suspicious of unbridled
reason, which he also finds the source of unbelief. "No," wrote Ibn
Khaldun, "one must be on guard by completely abandoning any
speculation about (causes)...We have been commanded completely to
abandon and suppress any speculation about [causes] and to direct
ourselves to the Causer of all causes, so that the soul will be
firmly coloured with the oneness of God. A man who stops at the
causes is frustrated. He is rightly (said to be) unbeliever
….Therefore we are forbidden by Muhammad to study causes."

The ultimate sign within Islam of the fear of disagreement is surely
the law of apostasy, (in Arabic, irtidad, or ridda ; while an
apostate is called a murtadd). In the Koran (xvi.106 ff ) the
apostate is threatened with punishment in the next world only, but
under Islamic law the penalty is death. In the Traditions, Ibn Abbas
transmits the following saying of the Prophet : . "Kill him, who
changes his religion" or "behead him" ( Ibn Maja, Hudud, bab 2;
Nasai, Tahrim al-dam, bab 14; Bukhari, Murtaddin, bab 2; Tirmidhi,
Hudud, bab 25, Abu Dawud, Hudud, bab. 1; Ibn Hanbal, i.217, 282,
322.)

Finally, we come to Islam’s fear of ‘outsiders.’ Islam undoubtedly
preached, to its credit, the equality of all free-born, Male
Muslims. However Muslim women, and Muslim slaves are of course not
considered equal. Thus Islam is not, in theory, racist .However
Islam excludes people on the basis of belief. Salvation outside the
Islamic faith is impossible. The world is divided between Muslims
and Non-Muslims. There are very many sayings in the Koran which
preach hatred and ill-will towards non-Muslims , and show a
pathological fear of the "other:"

iv.101: The unbelievers are your sworn enemies.

lx.4: We renounce you (i.e. the idolaters): enmity and hate shall
reign between us until you believe in Allah only…

lviii.23: You will not find believers in Allah and the Last day on
friendly terms with those who oppose Allah and His apostle, even
though they be their fathers, their sons, their brothers, or their
nearest kindred …

ix.7: Allah and His apostle repose no trust in idolaters …

viii.13-14: Thus We punished them because they defied Allah and His
apostle. He that defies Allah and His apostle shall be sternly
punished. We said to them, "Feel our scourge. Hell-fire awaits the
unbelievers."

viii.55: The basest creatures in the sight of Allah are the
faithless who will not believe …

xxv.55: Yet the unbelievers worship idols which can neither help nor
harm. Surely the unbeliever is his Lord’s enemy.

v.72: … He that worships other Gods besides Allah shall be forbidden
Paradise and shall be cast into Hell-fire. None shall help the
evil-doers.

ix.23: Believers! do not befriend your fathers or your brothers if
they choose unbelief in preference to faith. Wrong-doers are those
that befriend them.

ix. 28: Believers ! know that the idolaters are unclean.

xi. 28: Let believers not make friends with the infidels in
preference to the faithful ; he that does this has nothing to hope
for from Allah – except in self-defence.

iii.118: Believers ! do not make friends with any men other than
your own people. They will spare no pains to corrupt you. They
desire nothing but your ruin. Their hatred is clear from what they
say, but more violent is the hatred which their breasts conceal …

v. 14: Therefore, We stirred among them (the Christians) enmity and
hatred, which shall endure till the Day of Resurrection, when Allah
will declare to them all that they have done.

v.64 … That which Allah has revealed to you will surely increase the
wickedness and unbelief of many of them (the Jews). We have stirred
among them (the Jews) enmity and hatred which will endure till the
Day of Resurrection.

v.51: Believers! take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends.
They are friends with one another. Whoever of you seeks their
friendship shall become one of their number. Allah does not guide
the wrongdoers.

Christians are marginally better regarded than the Jews, but the
Koran still accuses them of falsifying the scriptures.v.75: "They
surely are infidels who say, "God is the third of three"; for there
is but one God; and if they do not refrain from what they say, a
severe punishment shall light on those who are unbelievers."

They are also accused of worshipping Jesus as the son of God, and
like the Jews, they have been led astray and must be brought back to
the true religion, that is, Islam.

According to the Koran, Jews have intense hatred of all true
Muslims, and as a punishments for their sins, some of them had, in
the past, been changed into apes and swine (surah v.63), and others
will have their hands tied to their necks and be cast into the Fire
on Judgment day. The attitude enjoined upon the Muslims towards the
Jews can only be described as anti-Semitic, and certainly was not
conducive to a better understanding, tolerance or co- existence.

v.51: Believers, do not take Jews or Christians as friends They are
but one anothers friends. If anyone of you takes them for his
friends,, then he is surely one of them. God will not guide
evil-doers."

v.56-64: O Believers, do not take as your friends the infidels or
those who received the Scriptures before you [Jews and Christians]
and who scoff and jest at your religion , but fear God if you are
believers. Nor those who when you call them to prayer, make it an
object of mirth and derision This is only because they are a people
who do not understand.

Say: "People of the Book: isn't it true that you hate us simply
because we believe in God, and in what He has sent down to us, and
in what He has revealed to others before; and because most of you
are evil doers?"

"Why don't their rabbis and doctors of lax forbid them from uttering
sinful words and eating unlawful food ? Evil indeed are their works.

"The hand of God is chained up ", claim the Jews .Their own hands
shall be chained up __ and they shall be cursed for saying such a
thing ".

Jews are often accused, in the Koran, of perverting the scriptures,
and holding doctrines they never held:

ix.29,30: "Declare war upon those to whom the Scriptures were
revealed but believe neither in God nor the Last Day ,and who do not
forbid that which God and His Apostle have forbidden, and who refuse
to acknowledge the true religion [Islam] until they pay the poll-tax
without reservation and are totally subjugated.

"The Jews claim that Ezra is a son of God, and the Christians say, "
the Messiah is a son of God ".Those are their claims which do indeed
resemble the sayings of the Infidels of Old. May God do battle with
them! How they are deluded!"

And they deserve fully any punishment they get:

ii.61: "Wretchedness and baseness were stamped upon them [That is
the Jews] and they drew on themselves the wrath of God. This was
because they [the Jews] disbelieved the signs of God and slew the
Prophets unjustly, and because they rebelled and transgressed ."

iv.160,161: Because of the wickedness of certain Jews, and because
they turn many from the way of God, We have forbidden them good and
wholesome foods which were formerly allowed them; and because they
have taken to usury, though they were forbidden it; and have cheated
others of their possessions, We have prepared a grievous punishment
for the Infidels amongst them ".

Such are some of the sentiments expressed in the Koran, which
remains for all Muslims, and not just "fundamentalists", the
uncreated word of God Himself. It is valid for all times and places,
its ideas are, according to all Muslims, absolutely true and beyond
any criticism.

The treatment of the Jews by Muhammad is certainly not above
reproach. The cold-blooded extermination of the Banu Qurayza (
between 600 and 900 men ), the expulsion of the Nadir and their
later massacre (something often overlooked in the history books) are
not signs of magnanimity or compassion. His treatment of the Jews of
the oasis of Khaybar served "as a model for the treaties granted by
the Arab conquerors to the conquered peoples in territories beyond
Arabia." Muhammad attacked the oasis in 628, had one of the leaders
tortured to find the hidden treasures of the tribe, and then when
the Jews surrendered, agreed to let them continue cultivating their
oasis only if they gave him half their produce. Muhammad also
reserved the right to cancel the treaty and expel the Jews whenever
he liked. This treaty or agreement was called a DHIMMA, and those
who accepted it were known as DHIMMIS. All non-Muslims who accepted
Muslim supremacy and agreed to pay a tribute, in return for " Muslim
protection," are referred to as dhimmis.

The second caliph Umar later expelled the Jews and the Christians
from the Hijaz (containing the holy cities of Mecca and Medina) in
640, referring to the dhimma of Khaybar. He is said to have quoted
the Prophet on the right to cancel any pact he wished, and the
Prophet's famous saying: " Two religions shall not remain together
in the peninsula of the Arabs." To this day, the establishment of
any other religion in Saudi Arabia is forbidden, many Christians
have been executed for simply practising their religion. Here is how
Amnesty International describes the situation in Saudi Arabia :

"Hundreds of Christians, including women and children have been
arrested and detained over the past three years, most without charge
or trial, solely for the peaceful expression of their religious
beliefs. Scores have been tortured, some by flogging, while in
detention….The possession of non-Islamic religious objects –
including Bibles, rosary beads, crosses and pictures of Jesus Christ
– is prohibited and such items may be confiscated" (AINO 62 ; July
/August 1993).

At least since the Renaissance, one of the characteristics of
Western civilisation has been its interest in other lands and
societies. "This universal curiosity is still a distinguishing,
almost an exclusive, characteristic of Europe and her daughters."
Muslims are by contrast profoundly convinced of the finality,
completeness, and essential self-sufficiency of their civilisation.
For the Muslim, Islam is the one true faith, beyond which there are
only unbelievers. "You [ Muslims ] are the best of peoples" the
Koran tells Muslims (sura iii.110) It is a remarkable fact that
until at least the late 16 th century, when Turkish historians began
to show a vague and still faint interest in European history, Muslim
historians, with three noble exceptions, and Muslims in general,
showed little desire to step outside their civilisation
intellectually. The exceptions are just that, exceptions : the
geographer Masudi, cultural historian and observer al-Biruni, and
historian Rashid al-Din. Until the end of the 18th century, very few
European books were translated into Muslim languages, and most of
these dealt with useful topics such as medical science. This
attitude has continued to this day. No Islamic country has
university faculties that study non-Islamic civilisations, with the
exception, significantly of Turkey, where, in Ankara, one can study
Sanskrit. Even to listen to Western classical music is considered
undesirable, and a danger to Islamic civilisation; "the treason of
an Arab begins when he enjoys listening to Mozart or Beethoven;"
wrote the Tunisian al-Wasiti ( quoted by Norman Daniel, Euro-Arab
dialogue, p.88 ) Here is how one political analyst sums up the
situation in the 1990s :

"Arabs may be well informed on currency movements and the latest
chat on the prospects of the Western economies but know surprisingly
little about how Western societies and governments operate. Even
those who live in the West or visit it frequently on holiday do not
have much understanding of it because, in most cases, when they are
there they mix with other Arabs,, principally their own relations,
and take no interest in the culture, history or institutions of the
countries they are in." Dr. Muhamed Talbi also makes a similar point
by quoting Ibn Khaldun and Maryam Jameelah :

Muslims are certain that Islam is not only the whole of God’s truth,
but it is its final expression. Hence Muslims fear and persecute
such post-Islamic religious movements as the Baha’is and the Ahmadis.
Here is Amnesty International on the plight of the Ahmadis [ ASA
:33/15.91]: "Ahmadis consider themselves to be Muslims but they are
regarded by orthodox Muslims as heretical because they call the
founder of their movement al-Masih [ the Messiah ]: this is taken to
imply that Muhammad is not the final seal of the prophets as
orthodox Islam holds, i.e., the Prophet who carried the final
message from God to humanity …. As a result of these divergences,
Ahmadis have been subjected to discrimination and persecution in
some Islamic countries. In the mid-1970s, the Saudi Arabia based
World Muslim League called on Muslim governments worldwide to take
action against Ahmadis. Ahmadis are since then banned in Saudi
Arabia."

There has been a demographic explosion in the Islamic world, and the
leaders have simply not coped, unable to provide jobs, housing,
health facilities, transport, inflation running high, all compounded
by human rights abuses (torture, summary justice, executions, and so
on ) This failure has been very ably exploited by the Islamists to
increase their prestige, to increase their power, which has led, in
turn, to mounting demands for increasing Islamization of society.
Another essential factor in the current Islamic revival has to do
with Islam’s crisis of identity, especially in face of the West’s
overwhelming economic and cultural success in contrast to the
relative economic, cultural, human rights failures of the
post-independence regimes in the Islamic world. These failures have
led to an increase of frustration, envy and hatred of the West, and
an exaggerated emphasis on their Islamic identity. And "since for
Muslims Islam is, by definition, superior to all other faiths, the
failures and defeats of Muslims in this world can only mean that
they are not practicing authentic Islam and that their states are
not true Islamic states. The remedy, therefore, is return to the
pure, authentic Islam of the Prophet and his Companions, a rejection
and elimination of the accretions and innovations that had debased
and corrupted the faith and enfeebled the Islamic society … "

Umberto Eco: [7] " …Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology
there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one.
The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot
is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the
inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the
advantage of being at the same time inside and outside."

A belief in international plots, or, in other words, conspiracy
theories are the key to understanding the politics of the Middle
East. As Daniel Pipes in his acclaimed study, "The Hidden Hand, The
Middle East Fears of Conspiracy" put it : "…Whoever hopes to
understand the Middle East must recognize the distorting lens of
conspiracy theories, understand them, make allowance for them, and
perhaps even plan around them. Conspiracism [the belief in
international plots or conspiracies] provides a key to understanding
the political culture of the Middle East." Amazingly enough, most of
the leading Muslim thinkers and actors of the twentieth century have
put forward conspiracy theories to excuse the continuing cultural
and economic backwardness of Islamic countries; the prevalence of
such theories indicate a refusal on the part of Muslims to take
responsibility for their own failures. As Pipes in his brilliant
work says, "although grand conspiracy theories surfaced in the
Middle East only in the late nineteenth century, their subject
matter ranges much farther ; indeed it often extends right back to
the time of the Prophet Muhammad. More broadly, conspiracy theorists
reinterpret the whole sweep of Islamic history, plundering medieval
texts to locate instances of conspiracy, especially on the part of
Christians and Jews."

The Iranian scholar Ervand Abrahamian has shown how prevalent the
conspiracies are in Iran,, leading often to tragic consequences , as
in the mass executions of 1981-82:

"When in June 1981 the [People’s] Mojahedin tried to overthrow the
Islamic Republic, Khomeini proclaimed that the CIA was planning a
repeat performance of 1953 and that the whole opposition, not just
the Mojahedin, was implicated in this grand international plot. In
six short weeks, the Islamic Republic shot over one thousand
prisoners. The victims included not only members of the Mojahedin
but also royalists, Bahais, Jews.

"Kurds, Baluchis, Arabs, Qashqayis, Tukomans, National Frontists,
Maoists, anti-Stalinist Marxists, and even apolitical teenage girls
who happened to be in the wrong street at the wrong time. Never
before in Iran had firing squads executed so many in so short a time
over so flimsy an accusation."

Muslim thinkers premise their understanding of modern history on
Western plots against Islam. For example, Muhammad al-Ghazali, a
leading contemporary Muslim thinker from Egypt, wrote, "there is a
conspiracy against Islam …by Western secularism because it claims
that Islam is a dangerous religion.". Khomeini goes further by
explaining, "In the interests of the Jews, America, and Israel, we
[Muslims] must be jailed and killed, we must be sacrificed to the
evil intentions of foreigners." According to such Muslim thinking,
Islam made the Muslims great, culturally, militarily, economically ,
but because of external influence and plotting of the Jews and the
imperialists, Muslims have been lured away from the Koran, the
Sharia, the Muslim way of life, and hence have lost their moorings.
Khomeini saw the Shah of Persia ‘s granting women the right to vote
as an "attempt to corrupt our chaste women" and a plot against Islam
"perhaps drawn up by the spies of the Jews and the Zionists"
intending to destroy "the independence of the state and the
economy." Rushdie’s novel, Satanic Verses he saw as a mortal threat
to Islam.

As Pipes concludes, nearly all the most influential Muslim thinkers,
such as Hasan al Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Abu’l A’la al-Maududi, accept
the premise of anti-Islamic conspiration by Jews and Europeans, as
do most of the preachers, scholars , journalists, and politicians.
The very constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran refers to
plotting, when it describes the White Revolution (the Shah’s
land-reform program) as an "American plot … a ploy to stabilize the
foundation of the colonialist government [of the Shah] and
strengthen Iran’s …ties with world imperialism." This constitution
also promises that non-Muslims will be well-treated if they refrain
from getting "in conspiracies hatched against the Islamic Republic
of Iran."

Muslims of the Middle East fear two main conspirators, Jews and
Imperialists. Jews are seen as a threat to the whole of humanity,
and are considered responsible for every evil in the world, from
assassinations of Lincoln, McKinley, and Kennedy, to the French and
Russian Revolution, and so on. As Robert Wistrich put it, for the
Muslim Brethren of Egypt, "Of all the myriad enemies of Islam …Jewry
represents the ultimate abomination, evil in its purest ontological
form." and as Daniel Pipes adds, and the same applies for many other
Muslims, for example, Sayyid Qutb, the very influential Egyptian
thinker, wrote, "Through the lengthy centuries – regretfully – [the
Jews] poisoned the Islamic heritage in a way that may itself be
revealed only with the effort of centuries."

Muslims considered the U.N. International Conference on Population
and Development held in Cairo in 1994 as an international plot to
undermine Islam, and to annihilate Muslims. Adil Husayn, a leading
Muslim Egyptian thinker argued that the West’s promotion of birth
control "is not aimed at developing the poor world. It is a racist
plan to designed to continue looting and weakening us in favour of
the dominating white race ….The conference is the culmination of a
scheme aimed at annihilating mankind and Muslims."

What precisely is the reason for the prevalence of conspiracy
theories in the Muslim Middle East. Many analysts are convinced of
the role and nature of Islam in the incubation and perpetuation of
conspiracy theories. The saying "better a 100 years of repression
than a day of anarchy" sums up the fear of anarchy (fitna) that lies
deep in Islamic culture, and may be responsible for encouraging the
paranoid style of thinking. More commonly, Middle Eastern analysts
point to the fatalism inculcated by Islam . Though there, as usual
contradictory statements in the Koran on this subject, in the end it
was the predestination doctrine that prevailed in Islam .Here are
some quotes from the Koran that have led to a kind of fatalism
within Islam :

liv. 49 All things have been created after fixed decree.

iii.139 No one can die except by God’s permission according to the
book that fixes the term of life.

lxxxvii.2 The Lord has created and balanced all things and has fixed
their destinies and guided them..

viii.17 God killed them, and those shafts were God’s, not yours.

ix.51 By no means can anything befall us but what God has destined
for us.

( See also, xiii.30 ; xiv.4 ; xviii.101 ; xxxii.32 xlv.26 ; lvii.22
)

Kanan Makiya, the Iraqi political thinker, sees, "extreme fatalism
…that may be a characteristic of Islamic culture generally « as a
key explanation for conspiracy theories. In his view, this world
view undermines the notion of man as responsible to himself.
Similarly, Homa Katouzian traces conspiracy theories to an «
unimaginable fatalism;" and Jahangir Amuzegar ascribes them to a
"fatalistic streak." Others point to the Shi’a tradition of taqiya (
dissimulation – for self-protection and the safeguarding of faith ;
and finally some single out the Shia tradition of martyrdom (shihada)
that causes Iranians to externalize evil, to seek to put the
responsibility for their failures, misdeeds, blunders onto others
plotting against them.

Umberto Eco: [8] "The followers must feel humiliated by the
ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies ….However, the
followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies.
Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are
the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are
condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable
of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy."

The Muslims in the Middle East have been constantly humiliated for
centuries, but perhaps at no time more so than since the late 18th
century when Napoleon first burst upon the scene with the conquest
of Egypt. Ever since then, Muslims have continued to be at once both
attracted, and repelled by Western civilisation, and all its
material and spiritual wares, which they cannot afford to buy, or
emulate for fear of being accused of treason towards Islam. The Six
–Day War with Israel totally humiliated not just Arabs, but all
Muslims around the world. And as Umberto Eco says, they are
condemned to lose wars as they seem incapable of rationally and
objectively assessing the strength and weaknesses of the enemy. The
enemy is seen as both too strong and too weak . As Field puts it,
the paranoid style in the Middle East "is obviously linked to the
theorists’ general ignorance of the outside world and this is
clearly a disadvantage for any society. The belief in plots,
combined with ignorance, leads the Arabs to exaggerate the power of
the West and misjudge its motives, making them believe that it is
hostile and manipulative when it is more likely to be morally
censorious, occasionally concerned with upholding states’
sovereignty and /or protecting its oil interests, generally
interested in promoting its exports, and often indifferent to Arab
issues – or concerned but unable to see how it can influence
events."

For the Middle Easterner, the Jewish or Imperialist conspirator is
at once too powerful and too weak. Thus "the conspirator never
rests, never falters, never makes mistakes, and never shows fear;
word to the contrary is disinformation. He is tireless." "Every day
the [enemies of Islam] plot new conspiracies and schemes." The
Zionist conspiracy "has enormous resources at its disposal: money,
media, industry, technology, oil, military hardware, and the
intelligence agencies, led by Mossad and CIA." Gamal Abdel Nasser
also believed in the omnipotence of the West, "The Americans know
perfectly well what we will say, where we will proceed, and what we
will do." While Sattareh Farman Farmaian tells of the servants in
her family’s Iranian home that they "believed that the English were
so diabolical that they could even cause floods, droughts, and
earthquakes. And it was true that to Iranians, the British seemed
almost supernaturally clever."

And yet, the enemies of Islam never wins . "The Jews may try, but
they will never destroy the [Muslims]." Or as The Baghdad Observer
put it, "A savage campaign has been conducted by the U.S. inside the
Security Council to hurt Iraq, choke its economy and starve its
people. Yet, as the first chapters of the conspiracy have failed to
weaken Iraq, the final phase of the enemies’ schemes is definitely
going to meet the same fate. The whole conspiracy is doomed to
failure."

Umberto Eco: [9] "For Ur-Fascism, (Eternal Fascism) there is no
struggle for life, but rather life is lived for struggle. Thus
pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is
permanent warfare."

Umberto Eco: [11] "…Everybody is educated to become a hero …This
cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. In
non-fascist societies, the lay public is told that death is
unpleasant but must be faced with dignity ; believers are told that
it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By,
contrast, the Ur-Fascist craves heroic death, advertised as the best
reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die.
In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death."

Umberto Eco’s feature [9] goes naturally well with feature [11], so
I shall discuss them here, and leave feature [10] for later.

The totalitarian nature of Islam is no where more apparent than in
the concept of Jihad, the Holy War, whose ultimate aim is to conquer
the entire world and submit it to the one true faith, to the law of
Allah. To Islam alone has been granted the truth - there is no
possibility of salvation outside it. It is the sacred duty - an
incumbent religious duty established in the Koran and the Traditions
- of all Muslims to bring it to all humanity. Jihad is a divine
institution, enjoined specially for the purpose of advancing Islam.
Muslims must strive, fight and kill in the name of God:

ix.5-6: "Kill those who join other gods with God wherever you may
find them."

iv.76: "Those who believe fight in the cause of God..."

viii.12: "I will instill terror into the hearts of the Infidels,
strike off their heads then, and strike off from them every
fingertip."

viii.39-42: "Say to the Infidels: If they desist from their
unbelief, what is now past shall be forgiven them; but if they
return to it, they have already before them the doom of the
ancients! Fight then against them till strife be at an end, and the
religion be all of it God's."

ii.256: "But they who believe, and who fly their country, and fight
in the cause of God may hope for God's mercy: and God is Gracious,
Merciful."

It is a grave sin for a Muslim to shirk the battle against the
unbelievers, those who do will roast in hell:

viii. 15, 16: "Believers, when you meet the unbelievers preparing
for battle do not turn your backs to them. [ Anyone who does ] shall
incur the wrath of God and hell shall be his home: an evil dwelling
indeed ".

ix.39: "If you do not fight, He will punish you severely, and put
others in your place."

Those who die fighting for the only true religion, Islam, will be
amply rewarded in the life to come:

iv.74: "Let those fight in the cause of God who barter the life of
this world for that which is to come; for whoever fights on God's
path, whether he is killed or triumphs, We will give him a handsome
reward."

It is abundantly clear from many of the above verses that the Koran
is not talking of metaphorical battles or of moral crusades; it is
talking of the battle field. To read such blood thirsty injunctions
in a Holy Book is shocking.

Mankind is divided into two groups - Muslims and non-Muslims. The
Muslims are members of the Islamic community, the umma, who possess
territories in the Dar ul Islam, the Land of Islam, where the edicts
of Islam are fully promulgated. The non-Muslims are the Harbi,
people of the Dar ul Harb, the Land of Warfare, any country
belonging to the infidels which has not been subdued by Islam but
which, nonetheless, is destined to pass into Islamic jurisdiction
either by conversion or by war (Harb). All acts of war are permitted
in the Dar ul Harb. Once the Dar ul Harb has been subjugated, the
Harbi become prisoners of war. The imam can do what he likes to them
according to the circumstances. Woe betide the city that resists and
is then taken by the Islamic army by storm.. In this case, the
inhabitants have no rights whatsoever, and as Sir Steven Runciman
says in his "The Fall of Constantinople, 1453":

"The conquering army is allowed three days of unrestricted pillage;
and the former places of worship, with every other building, become
the property of the conquering leader; he may dispose of them as he
pleases. Sultan Mehmet [after the fall of Constantinople in 1453
allowed] his soldiers the three days of pillage to which they were
entitled. They poured into the city...They slew everyone that they
met in the streets, men, women and children without discrimination..
The blood ran in rivers down the steep streets...But soon the lust
for slaughter was assuaged. The soldiers realized that captives and
precious objects would bring them greater profits."

In other cases, they are sold into slavery, exiled or treated as
dhimmis, who are tolerated as second class subjects, as long as they
pay a regular tribute.

It is common nowadays for the apologists of Islam, whether Muslims
or their Western admirers, to interpret "Jihad" in the non-military
sense of "moral struggle," "moral striving." But it is quite
illegitimate to pretend that the Koran and the books on Islamic Law
were talking about "moral crusades." Rather as Rudolf Peters says in
his definitive study of Jihad says, "In the books on Islamic Law,
the word means armed struggle against the unbelievers, which is also
a common meaning in the Koran." Apologists of Islam, even when they
do admit that real battles are being referred to, still pretend that
the doctrine of Jihad only talks of "defensive measures," that is,
the apologists pretend that fighting is only allowed to defend
Muslims, and that offensive wars are illegitimate. But again, this
is not the classical doctrine in Islam; as Peters makes clear, the
Sword Verses in the Koran were interpreted as unconditional commands
to fight the unbelievers, and furthermore these Sword Verses
abrogated all previous verses concerning intercourse with
non-Muslims. Peters sums up the classical doctrine as:

"The doctrine of Jihad as laid down in the works on Islamic Law,
developed out of the Koranic prescriptions and the example of the
Prophet and the first caliphs, which is recorded in the hadith; The
crux of the doctrine is the existence of one single Islamic state,
ruling the entire umma [Muslim community]. It is the duty of the
umma to expand the territory of this state in order to bring as many
people under its rule as possible. The ultimate aim is to bring the
whole earth under the sway of Islam and to extirpate unbelief :
"Fight them until there is no persecution and the religion is God’s
entirely." (sura ii.193 ; viii.39). Expansionist jihad is a
collective duty (fard ala al-kifaya), which is fulfilled if a
sufficient number of people take part in it. If this is not the
case, the whole umma [Muslim community] is sinning."

Here are more bellicose verses from the Koran, the words of Allah
telling Muslims to kill, murder on his behalf :

ii.193: Fight against them until idolatry is no more and Allah’s
religion reigns supreme.

ii. 216: Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it. But
you may hate a thing although it is good for you, and love a thing
although it is bad for you. Allah knows, but you do not.

ix.41: Whether unarmed or well-equipped, march on and fight for the
cause of Allah, with your wealth and your persons. This is best for
you, if you but knew it.

ix. 123: Believers! make war on the infidels who dwell around you
let them find harshness in you.

lxvi.9: O Prophet! make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites
and deal sternly with them hell shall be their home, evil their
fate.

ix.73: O Prophet Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites. Be
harsh with them. Their ultimate abode is hell, a hapless journey’s
end.

viii.65: O Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight. If there are
twenty steadfast men among you, they shall vanquish two hundred; and
if there are a hundred, they shall rout a thousand unbelievers, for
they are devoid of understanding.

xlvii.4-15: When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield strike
off their heads and when you have laid them low, bind your captives
firmly ….

xxv.52: Do not yield to the unbelievers, but fight them strenuously
with this Koran.

viii.67: It is not for any Prophet to have captives until he has
made slaughter in the land …

What Umberto Eco calls the cult of heroism and the cult of death is
beautifully exemplified in the Muslim cult of martyrdom. The Koran
promises Paradise with its seductive houris to all those who die in
the cause of Islam :

x. 4-15 "...As for those who are slain in the cause of Allah, He
will not allow their works to perish. He will vouchsafe them
guidance and ennoble their state; He will admit them to Paradise He
has made known to them."

ix.111: "Allah has purchased of their faithful lives and worldly
goods and in return has promised them the Garden. They will fight
for His cause, kill and be killed."

iii.169-171: "You must not think that those who were slain in the
cause of Allah are dead. They are alive, and well-provided for by
their Lord…. "

iii.157-158 "If you should die or be killed in the cause of Allah,
His mercy and forgiveness would surely be better than all the riches
that amass. If you should die or be killed, before Him you shall all
be gathered."

Bukhari gives the following hadith : "Narrated Anas bin Malik : ‘The
prophet said, 'Nobody who dies and finds good from Allah (in the
hereafter) would wish to come back to this world even if he were
given the whole world …except the martyr who, on seeing the
superiority of martyrdom, would like to come back to the world and
get killed again (in Allah's cause.)'"

Finally, on the obligation of Jihad, I shall quote from two Muslim
thinkers greatly admired in the West. First Ibn Khaldun in his
Muqaddimah writes: "In the Muslim community, the holy war is
religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission
and (the obligation to) covert everybody to Islam either by
persuasion or by force."

And now Averroes, a much romanticized figure in the West :
"According to the majority of scholars, the compulsory nature of the
jihad is founded on sura ii.216: ‘Prescribed for you is fighting,
though it is hateful to you.’ The obligation to participate in the
jihad applies to adult free men who have the means at their disposal
to go to war and who are healthy, … Scholars agree that all
polytheists should be fought; This founded on sura viii.39: Fight
them until there is no persecution and the religion is God’s
entirely"… Most scholars are agreed that, in his dealing with
captives, various policies are open to the Imam. He may pardon them,
enslave them, kill them, or release them either on ransom or as
dhimmi [non-Muslim, second class subject of the Islamic state], in
which latter case the released captive is obliged to pay poll-tax (jizya)
….Sura viii.67 "It is not for any Prophet to have prisoners until he
make wide slaughter in the land." as well as the occasion when this
verse was revealed [viz.the captives of Badr] would prove that it is
better to kill captives than to enslave them. The Prophet himself
would in some cases kill captives outside the field of battle, while
he would pardon them in others. Women he used to enslave …. The
Muslims are agreed that the aim of warfare against the People of the
Book …is two-fold :either conversion to Islam or payment of poll-tax
–jizya)."

Umberto Eco: [10] "Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary
ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and
aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for
the weak. Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every
citizen belongs to the best people of the world, the members of the
party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought
to) become a member of the party … "

Here, it takes very little substitution to see how Umberto Eco's
tenth feature applies to Muslims as well. "Every [Muslim] belongs to
the best people of the world, the members of the [Umma] are the best
among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a
[Muslim] member of the [Umma]."

Islam is the most perfect of religion, and Muslims are the chosen
people, as sura v.3 tells us: " This day I have prefected for you
your religion and completed My favour to you and chosen for you
Islam as a religion." Islam is destined to triumph ultimately, sura
ix.33 "He it is Who sent His Messenger with guidance and the
Religion of Truth, that He may cause it to prevail over all
religions, though the polytheists are averse" (see also xlviii.28;
lxi.9).

The arrogance of Muslims is captured very precisely by Frithjof
Schuon, a Western convert to a mystical variety of Islam:

"The intellectual – and thereby the rational – foundation of Islam
results in the average Muslim having a curious tendency to believe
that non-Muslims either know that Islam is the Truth and reject it
out of pure obstinacy, or else are simply ignorant of it and can be
converted by elementary explanations; that anyone should be able to
oppose Islam with a good conscience quite exceeds the Muslims’
imagination, precisely because Islam coincides in his mind with the
irresistible logic of things."

Umberto Eco: [12] "Since both permanent war and heroism are
difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power
to sexual matters. This is the origin of machismo (which implies
both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of
non-standard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality)."

Here are some machismo sayings from the Koran :

iv..34 Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one
of them to excel the other, & because they spend of their property
(for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding
in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye
fear rebellion, admonish them & banish them to beds apart; and beat
them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them Lo! Allah
is ever High Exalted, Great.

v.6... And if ye are sick on a journey, or one of you cometh from
the closet, or ye have contact with women & ye find not water, then
go to clean high ground & rub your faces & your hands with some of
it...

xxxiii. 32-33 O ye wives of the Prophet! Ye are not like any other
women. If ye keep your duty (to Allah), then be not soft of speech
lest he in whose heart is a disease aspire to you, but utter
customary speech And stay in your houses. Bedizen not yourselves
with the bedizenment of the time of ignorance. Be regular in prayer,
& pay the poor due, & obey Allah & His Messenger...

Equally, in numerous Hadiths on which are based the Islamic laws we
learn of the woman' s role - to stay at home, to be at the beck &
call of man, to obey him (which is a religious duty,) to assure man
a tranquil existence. Here are some examples:

_____ If it had been given me to order someone to prostrate
themselves in front of someone other than God, I would surely have
ordered women to prostrate themselves in front of their husbands...
A woman cannot fulfill her duties towards God without first having
accomplished those that she owes her husband.

_____ The woman who dies & with whom the husband is satisfied will
go to paradise.

_____ A wife should never refuse herself to her husband even if it
is on the saddle of a camel.

_____ Hellfire appeared to me in a dream & I noticed that it was
above all peopled with women who had been ungrateful. "Was it
towards God that they were ungrateful?" They had not shown any
gratitude towards their husbands for all they had received from
them... Even when all your life you have showered a woman with your
largesse she will still find something petty to reproach you with
one day, saying, "You have never done anything for me."

_____ If anything presages a bad omen it is: a house, a woman, a
horse.

_____ Never will a people know success if they confide their affairs
to a woman.

Al -Ghazali (1058 - 1111), whom Professor Montgomery Watt describes
as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad, in his " The Revival Of The
Religious Sciences," defines the woman' s role:

"She should stay at home & get on with her spinning, she should not
go out often, she must not be well-informed, nor must she be
communicative with her neighbours & only visit them when absolutely
necessary; she should take care of her husband & respect him in his
presence & his absence & seek to satisfy him in everything; she must
not cheat on him nor extort money from him; she must not leave her
house without his permission & if gives his permission she must
leave surreptitiously. She should put old on clothes & take deserted
streets & alleys, avoid markets, & make sure that a stranger does
not hear her voice or recognise her; she must not speak to a friend
of her husband even in need... Her sole worry should be her virtue,
her home as well as her prayers & her fast. If a friend of her
husband calls when the latter is absent she must not open the door
nor reply to him in order to safeguard her & her husband's honour.
She should accept what her husband gives her as sufficient sexual
needs at any moment "...She should be clean and ready to satisfy her
husband's sexual needs at any moment." The great theologian then
warns all men to be careful of women for their, "guile is immense &
their mischief is noxious; they are immoral & mean spirited." "It is
a fact that all the trials, misfortunes & woes which befall men come
from women," moaned Al Ghazali.

In his Book of Counsel for Kings, Ghazali sums up all that a woman
has to suffer & endure because of Eve's misbehaviour in the Garden
of Eden:

"As for the distinctive characteristics with which God on high has
punished women, (the matter is as follows): "When Eve ate fruit
which He had forbidden to her from the tree in Paradise, the Lord,
be He praised, punished women with eighteen things: (1)
menstruation; (2) childbirth; (3) separation from mother & father &
marriage to a stranger; (4) pregnancy; (5) not having control over
her own person; (6) a lesser share in inheritance; (7) her liability
to be divorced & inability to divorce; (8) its being lawful for men
to have four wives, but for a woman to have only one husband; (9)
the fact that she must stay secluded in the house; (10) the fact
that she must keep her head covered inside the house; (11) the fact
that two women's testimony has to be set against the testimony of
one man; (12) the fact that she must not go out of the house unless
accompanied by a near relative; (13) the fact that men take part in
Friday & feast day prayers & funerals while women do not; (14)
disqualification for rulership & judgeship; (15) the fact that merit
has one thousand components, only one of which is attributable to
women, while 999 are attributable to men; (16)... (17) the fact that
if their husbands die they must observe a waiting period of four
months & ten days before remarrying. (18) The fact that if their
husbands divorce them they must observe a waiting period of three
months or three menstrual periods before remarrying... "

The Koran, of course, permits men an unlimited number of women: IV.3
And if ye are apprehensive that ye shall not deal fairly with
orphans, then, of other women who seem good in your eyes marry but
two, or three or four; & if ye still fear that ye shall not act
equitably, then one only; or the slaves whom ye have acquired
XXIII.1,5,6. Happy now the believers, humble in their prayers,
shunning vain conversation, paying the poor-due,& who restrain their
appetites except with their wives or the slaves whom their right
hands possess: for in that case they shall be free from blame.

XXXIII.49-51 O Prophet! We allow thee thy wives whom thou hast
dowered, & the slaves whom thy right hand possesseth out of the
booty which God hath granted thee, & the daughters of thy uncle, thy
paternal & maternal aunts who fled with thee to Medina, & any
believing woman who hath given herself up to the Prophet, if the
Prophet desired to wed her - a Privilege for thee above the rest of
the Faithful We well know what we have settled for them, in regard
to their wives & to the slaves...; that there may be no fault on thy
part... Thou mayst decline for the present whom thou wilt of them, &
thou mayest take to thy bed her whom thou wilt, & whomsoever thou
shalt long for of those thou shalt have before neglected, & this
shall not be a crime in thee."

The inequality between men & women in matters of giving testimony or
evidence; or being a witness is enshrined in the Koran: II.282 "Call
in two male witnesses from among you but if two men cannot be found,
then one man & two women whom you judge fit to act as witnesses; so
that if either of them commit an error the other will remember."

On adultery the Koran says: XXIV.4 Those that defame honourable
women & cannot produce four witnesses shall be given eighty lashes.
"Of course, Muslim jurists will only accept four male witnesses.
These witnesses must declare that they have "seen the parties in the
very act of carnal conjunction".

In questions of heritage, the Quran tells us that male children
should inherit twice the portion of female children IV.11-12 A male
shall inherit twice as much as a female. If there be more than two
girls, they shall have two- thirds of the inheritance, but if there
be one only, she shall inherit the half. Parents shall inherit a
sixth each, if the deceased have a child; but if he leave no child &
his parents be his heirs, his mother shall have a third. If he have
brothers, his mother shall have a sixth after payment of any legacy
he may have bequeathed or any debt he may have owed.

The birth of a girl is still seen as a catastrophe in Islamic
societies.. The system of inheritance just adds to her misery & her
dependence on the man.... If she is an only child she receives only
half the legacy of her father, the other half going to the male
members of the father's family. If there are two or more daughters,
they inherit 2/3rds. This pushes fathers & mothers to prefer male
children to female so that they can leave the entirety of their
effects or possessions to their own descendants. "Yet when a
new-born girl is announced to one of them his countenance darkens &
heis filled with gloom"; Koran XLIII. 15. The situation is even
worse when a woman loses her husband - she only receives a quarter
of the legacy & one eighth if there are. If the deceased leaves more
than one wife, all the wives are still obliged to share among
themselves a quarter or one eighth of the legacy.

All Muslim males can at any moment separate themselves from their
wives, can repudiate their wives without formality, without
explanations, without compensation. It is enough for the husband to
pronounce the phrase "You are divorced" & it is done. Up to a period
of three months the divorce is revocable. If the husband pronounces
"You are divorced" three times, then the divorce is definitive. In
the latter case the divorced wife cannot return to her husband until
she has been married, "enjoyed", & divorced by another husband.
Divorce depends entirely on the will & caprice of the husband - he
may divorce his wife without any misbehaviour on her part, or
without assigning any cause. As far as the custody of children goes,
it is the mother who has the right to keep them. But as soon as she
decides to remarry, she automatically loses her right to her
children from the previous marriage.... In the case where the
husband has the custody of children, if he remarries he does not
lose this right to keep his children. Thus the woman is faced with
the choice of remarrying & losing custody of her children or keeping
her children & not marrying. This of course leads to a total
insecurity for the women. Divorce is very frequent in Arab
countries; instead of keeping four wives at the same time, which is
rather expensive, a man simply changes his wife several times as
recommended by the great Al Ghazali.

If a woman asks a man for a divorce, he may agree if he is paid or
compensated in some way...In such a case she is not entitled to the
repayment of her dower. The Koran sanctions such a dissolution
II.229 "If ye fear that they cannot observe the ordinances of God,
then no blame shall attach to either of you for what the wife shall
herself give for her redemption."

An annulment of a marriage means a woman loses the right to the
dowry & must give back what she has already received. Divorced women
do have the right to re-marry but " must wait keeping themselves
from men, three menstrual courses." ( II. 228 )

Umberto Eco: [13] "Ur-Fascism (Eternal Fascism) is based upon a
selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say. In a
democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in
their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative
point of view – one follows the decisions of the majority. For
Ur-Fascism (Eternal Fascism), however, individuals as individuals
have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a
monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large
quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends
to be their interpreter..."

Liberal democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom and
attaches all possible value to each man or woman. Individualism is
not a recognizable feature of Islam ; instead the collective will of
the Muslim people is constantly emphasized. There is certainly no
notion of individual rights, which developed in the West, especially
during the eighteenth century. The constant injunction to obey the
Caliph, who is God’s Shadow on Earth, is hardly inducive to creating
a rights –based individualist philosophy. The hostility to
individual rights is manifest in these two excerpts, one from the
great Ibn Khaldun, and one from a recent Muslim thinker A.K. Brohi,
a former Minister of Law and Religious Affairs in Pakistan who has
often written on human rights from an Islamic perspective.

First, Ibn Khaldun: "All religious laws and practices and everything
that the masses are expected to do requires group feeling. Only with
the help of group feeling can a claim be successfully
pressed,….Group feeling is necessary to the Muslim community. Its
existence enables (the community) to fulfill what God expects of
it."

Now A.K.Brohi : "Human duties and rights have been vigorously
defined and their orderly enforcement is the duty of the whole of
organized communities and the task is specifically entrusted to the
law enforcement organs of the state. The individual if necessary has
to be sacrificed in order that that the life of the organism be
saved. Collectivity has a special sanctity attached to it in Islam."

"[In Islam] there are no "human rights" or "freedoms" admissible to
man …in essence the believer owes obligation or duties to God if
only because he is called upon to obey the Divine Law and such human
rights as he is made to acknowledge seem to stem from his primary
duty to obey God ." (Note the chillingly frightening, fascist and
totalitarian phrase, "the individual if necessary has to be
sacrificed.")

Umberto Eco [14] "Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. Newspeak was invented
by Orwell, in 1984, …But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to
different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks
made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in
order to limit the instruments for complex and critical thinking."

A.K.Brohi already quoted above, goes on to write, "By accepting to
live in bondage to this Divine Law, man learns to be free," which
again frighteningly reminds one of Orwell’s Newspeak...

"Freedom is Slavery."

As for Arabic, one Muslim
philosopher, Shabbir Akhtar who taught at the International Islamic
University in Malaysia has written of the limitations of Arabic, "In
modern analytical philosophy, there is hardly anything in Arabic or
any other Islamic tongue. Philosophical discussion is best conducted
in English. Owing to the grammatical limitations of of Arabic, it is
impossible to express most philosophical claims with an acceptable
degree of rigour and clarity. Moreover Arabic is a devotional
language lacking the vocabulary requisite for detached discussion of
controversial matters."

Ibn Warraq is the author of Why I Am Not a Muslim and the editor of The Origins of the Koran, The Quest for the Historical Muhammad, and What the Koran Really Says.